Blowing Up in Humid Town

I have experienced some pretty nasty weather ever since I started running, but none of that compared to the horrid humidity I hurried through last Thursday evening. What made the run even more excruciating was that it was my first "tempo" run. "Tempo" runs are where you pick up your pace for a certain amount of time. My goal was to run at 8:16 pace for ten minutes at some point during my six mile run.

My philosophy in tackling tough tasks is usually to try and get through the hardest part first. This way, the remainder of the exercise is fairly easy. That philosophy usually works out pretty good, but I would not recommend it for "tempo" running. I started the run with a half mile warm up and then picked it up to 8:16 pace to start the "tempo" run. Right off the bat I noticed that I was sweating way more than usual and breathing was very hard to do. Half way into the run the left side of my brain was coming up with all the excuses in the world it could muster to get me to quit. I pushed on and finished the ten minute "tempo" run and immediately slowed to a pathetic jog to try and "rest on the run".

The attempt was a complete, catastrophic calamity and I soon found myself walking to regain my breath. "Stop walking you pansy", screamed the right side of my brain. "Turn right here and your car will only be a mile away" begged the left side of my brain. I soon started doing math in my head to try and take my mind off trying to breath and the heat. This worked for a good while. I finished the run (with a couple more walk breaks and even more math problems) and felt pretty discouraged until I ran into my coach who told me that he cut his run short due to the humidity and had a hell of time finishing as well. So there . . . I was not the only woose running last Thursday...kidding.

The rest of the week was pretty tame as far as my ridiculous running routing goes. On Friday I decided to run a new course from the YMCA over to the Windsor entrance of Lake Forest and back. It was a great area to run in except for the lack of sidewalks over half of it. On Saturday I ran on a treadmill to give my legs some recovery and get ready for Sunday's long run.

Sunday's run was the best breezy bay run I have had since I started running. I ran fourteen miles again, but this time we ran over on Dauphin Island Parkway over the Dog River Bridge...yes ran over the Dog River Bridge. If Thursday's run was the most humid of the season, then Sunday's was the coolest. We started at 6:00 am and I actually caught my teeth chattering on a few occasions. The run was great and I hope it is the same this weekend.

Monday I had another torturous, timed track workout. This week I had to complete 5x1000 meters with each 1000 meters completed in 5:00 minutes and a 200 meter recovery. I then had to do 2x1000 meters in 4:45 with a 3:00 minute recovery. We finished the workout with 2x200 meters in 45 seconds.

Tuesday's run was completed with my beautiful, boootylicious babe over in Daphne. She ran 3.5 and I did 6. I am off today and am scheduled for another 16 miles on Sunday. I also received September's schedule and will be running 20 miles by the end of that month...I cannot wait!!!!

Sorry for the delay and the short post this week but work has been killer.

On Sunday, August 9th, I ran fourteen miles over in Mobile. What makes the accomplishment better in my eyes is that I did it on the hilliest course I have ran on to date. Hillcrest is named the way it is for a reason.

I ran forty six miles combined last week including Sundays sixteen mile run. Yes, I can now run sixteen miles. I was scheduled for fourteen but decided to run sixteen because my buddy did not want to run it on his own.

Yesterday's track workout was murderous. It was a ladder workout of 4x200 meters with a 200 meter recovery, 2x400 meters with a 400 meter recovery, 1x800 with a 400 meter recovery, and then we had to go back down the ladder by doing 2x400 with a 400 meter recovery, and 4x200 with a 200 meter recovery. Including warm ups we ran over six miles with a third of the runs being at sprint pace...UGHHH.

This weeks long run is fourteen miles again. The Mobile group wants to run over the Dauphin Island bridge so I have some high humidity and traffic to look forward to. I just hope they do not have speed traps set up because I will likely get a speeding ticket if they clock my extreme running speeds...DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Setting a PR at the Crime Prevention 5k.

There has not been much to report this week. I ran my ten mile long run over in Mobile with a friend of mine and his running group. We ran out in the Birdville area in Downtown Mobile, and needless to say, I had no trouble being motivated to run fast.

The reason for the off-week is because I participated in the Crime Prevention 5k hosted by the Port City Pacers. I had the pleasure of joining approximately 400 other participants in what many label as the first race of the 2009-2010 season.

I had plenty of motivation to participate in this race as I really wanted to erase my dismal 30:04 time in my previous attempt at a 5k and was anxious to see if all of my training was paying off. Early on I did not think I would do very well because everyone at the event looked to be in tremendous shape and or looked like runners. Complicating things further was the fact that it was very hot and humid as hell, not an ideal combination for trying to set a personal record.

Prior to the race my coach told me to start out slow and try and pick up my pace at the end so that I could start picking people off. He did not want me blowing myself up in the beginning of the race. He also pointed out three people for me to pace off of and wished me luck. When we all lined up to start the race I found the three people coach wanted me to pace off of and sneaked in behind them. "Ha ha" I thought, "I will use you until the end when I will kick it into high gear and pass you".

Without any warning the officials shot the starting pistol and we were off. I tried my best at first to stay right behind my pace group but people behind me started surging forward and passing me. "Uh oh" I fretted, "Looks like I am going to be in last place at this bitch". As we made our way to the half mile mark the herd had pretty much thinned out and I was able to get into a pretty good rhythm. I also passed two of the people Jon wanted me to pace off of. That was probably my first warning sign that I was going too fast. As we approached the first mile marker, I also realized that I should have drank some water in the hour and a half we spent waiting for the race to start. This leads me to my first point of advice, always pre-register because registering on the day of requires you to get to the race way too early and they may not be serving pre-race refreshments. My thirst and the heat made it neccesary for me to take water at every aid station.

I looked at the clock when I arrived at the first mile station and saw that I was running at an 8:00 minute pace. "Sh*&" I thought, "I am running way too fast". It was at this point that I decided to back off of the gas a bit and slow my stride down so that I could make it all the way to the end strong. When I did so, the two people I was supposed to be pacing off of that I had passed earlier came back by me and I stayed right behind them as I was supposed to in the begining.

It was right at this time that an older gentleman also passed me. The thing that stood out about this guy was that he was wearing mountain boots, cargo shorts, a cap, and he ran like he was falling forward and trying to keep himself from slamming to the ground. Aside from his cattywompus running style, he also made loud grunting noises (I could hear him even with my Ipod going) and ran with jazz hands the whole time. Swear to Jebus. You can imagine what my dignity and pride were saying to me as this odd fellow passed me. "Oh hell no. Run and pass that guy you fat bitch!!!!"

I formulated a new plan to simply stay with the two people who passed me and pick up the pace at the end to pass them and Crazy Clause. I maintained a pretty good rhythm through the second mile and I started noticing many of the people who had pushed me out of the way earlier were now jogging at a much slower pace. Going into the third mile and the finish I think I passed around thirty people, including your grandfather. We made the turn back onto Dauphin Street and I discovered that the people I was pacing off of had managed to pass a pretty big group of runners to where I could not see them anymore. I tried to keep them in site to see when they would start their kick at the end because that is when I planned on passing them up. Turns out I saw them kicking a little to late due to the group they had passed and I ended up finishing around three seconds behind them for a total time of 25:13.

The time was good enough for 138th place out of 400 people and set my new personal record for a 5k by approximately five minutes. I also ran an average pace of 8:06 per mile. Yay me.

Wednesday is my normal rest day so I did not have to run the day after the race. I ran seven miles on Thursday, am running five miles on Friday, eight on Saturday and a whopping fourteen miles on Sunday...YIKES. I will post the results of that run but I am planning on running this one with the same running group I did on Sunday. Group runs make the long ones go so much better and faster. The only problem is getting up at 4:30 am. No more partying for this guy on the weekends. Shucks!!!